Now also in Nepali: Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies

Clean toilets save lives. But with billions of people lacking access to basic sanitation around the world, which toilet best meets each person’s and family’s need? Since 2008, one of the most popular guidebooks used to help answer that question has been the Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies.

As a tool, the compendium sheds light on the diverse sanitary solutions which can help poor people across the developing world lead healthier and happier lives. With abundant information about sanitation technologies scattered throughout numerous books, reports, proceedings and journals, this unique Compendium centralizes all the available main information.

Promoting a systems approach, where sanitation devices and technologies are considered as parts of an entire system, the Compendium is split into two parts: System Templates and a description about how to use them; and illustrated Technology Information Sheets.

While the System Templates primarily address engineers and planners dealing with infrastructure delivery, the Technology Information Sheets allow non-experts to understand the main advantages and limitations of different technologies and the appropriateness of different system configurations. This approach allows all stakeholders to be involved in selecting improved sanitation technologies and the promotion of people-centred solutions to real sanitation problems.

Eight different System Templates, presenting logical combinations of technologies, are described and evaluated. By combining these templates with 52 different illustrated Technology Information Sheets (describing the main advantages, disadvantages, applications and the appropriateness of the technologies required to build a comprehensive sanitation system), ensures the selection is context specific and suitable for local environment (temperature, rainfall, etc.), culture (sitters, squatters, washers, wipers, etc.) and resources (human and material).

Diana You can look at the role of MFIs in Kenya in Sanitation here. I was part of the team that did the evaluation of a program called WaterCredit supported by MasterCard Foundation. rwsnforum7.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/f...335_gupta_sanjay.pdf If you need more detail, you can write to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need Ja […]

Hi Everyone, This is turning out be a very informative discussion. Hopefully, someone from the corporate sector can share their insights. I agree with Nitya- for incentivisation, we need to reward companies for their behavior rather than adopt a "shame" approach. Our experience with corporates is that many of them are not well versed with what sani […]

Showers use a lot of water, which is drained off. When warm water is used, also the heat is lost unless a heat recovery system has been installed. To combat water and heat wastage the Upfallshower has been developed. The Upfallshower recycles 90% of the water, thus saving 90% of the water and energy requirements. The recycled water is filtered and UV desinfe […]

In my experience, if you are planning a biogas then perhaps using the same for cooking is fine but electricity is a more complicated process and not very suitable for IDP set up. THese require regular maintenance. So even if you are able to procure one, getting timely services and repair will be tough. You will usually not find these services locally.

Hi all, my name is Sanjay K Gupta and I work at Skat Switzerland. The outreach of companies for incentivizing sanitation, particular in rural sanitation is limited, unless the company having its CSR fund particularly focuses on rural segment of the population. Many of the companies themselves need orientation on sanitation and then developing a CSR plan that […]